Having drafted plans to raze the Market Street Cinema at 1075 Market Street and construct an 8-story building the site of the former “adult entertainment complex,” the San Francisco-based Encore Housing Opportunity Fund is in contract to buy the site from Harry Mohney and the Forbes family according to the Business Times.

The preliminary plans for the Mid-Market development include between 90 and 99 condos over 7,500 square feet of street-level retail and 24 parking spaces on the parcel which is zoned for buildings up to 90 feet in height. The units would be a mix of studios, one-bedrooms, and two’s catering to the “creative, bike-centric workers filling office buildings in the neighborhood.”

While the demolition of movie theaters in San Francisco is regulated and restricted, the controls do not apply to “Adult Theaters.” And as such, the Planning Department has requested “evidence to clarify the history of this property as it relates to theater and/or adult entertainment uses,” perhaps a few select pictures or footage from a hidden camera.

Agreed with formidable
I hope the NIMBYs come out in full force against this change. We wouldn’t want to replace this historic landmark with an eyesore that blocks our amazing views…
Anyhow, I’m sure they won’t have trouble collecting at least 10,000 signatures in opposition. I know I’ll be signing right away

No sadness perceived here. Can’t wait for this stretch of Market to be cleaned up. The only sadness is that the City’s not going to do anything about the homeless and drug addicts, so they’re just going to spill into Civic Center and western SoMa instead.

There’s seediness and then there’s adult. They don’t have to go together. I hope SF finds a way to get rid of the former while leaving some of the latter.
There’s only so much ground floor retail that can’t be replaced by Amazon. Restaurants, dog groomers, people groomers, massage parlors, and this are pretty much it. For local economic growth we need more strip clubs, not fewer. And they should be closer to where I live.

This is excellent to see, to the point about cleaning up the homeless, they are starting to move elsewhere in the city.
I am seeing it a lot more of late. So it would appear they are being removed from the area and branching out.

“Sad to see the seedier side of SF go by the wayside. Im not being sarcastic actually, it’s inevitable, and we need more housing, but still sad.”
Statements like this drive me crazy. Are you sad to see the seediness go because you participate in it and use these theaters, porn complexes, strip clubs, etc? Or do you simply like having them in their city because of the “diversity” they bring. Do you know how many people are trapped in these industries? How much drug abuse, violence, sadness, abuse goes on behind the scenes? How there are groups devoted to getting women and their children safely out of these establishments because of the danger they hold?
When I hear people remark fondly about the “seedy side of the city”, whether it is drug dealing or strip clubs or whatever, it is like a slap in the face to those who are stuck in a living hell. You just get to walk by these establishments to a (in their eyes anyway) dream job or apartment, and they add to your “city experience”. Heaven forbid we remove this misery from the city because you feel like your lifestyle is somehow lessened because of sadness you just like to casually observe sometimes, not participate in.

Isn’t this on the same block as the building where the tenants are fighting the eviction?
I think the preservation idea has merit. Aren’t they doing this on Mission Street with one of those old movie palace facades?
I want to thank TheHitman (aka Hitner)for his gracious follow-up post to me concerning the Campos proposal last week. (Sunday will be a great day.)

It’s a common thing in this city for people to be proud of the “seediness” or “grit” of certain neighborhoods. Like JWS I’m appalled by that and I can only assume that it makes people feel better in their own miserable lives if they are constantly reminded that others are worse off. Certainly explains the gratuitous hatred of “techies” and anybody else who actually has their life together.

LOL at the comment of how the women who worked there are “Victims”. I’m too old now, but back in the days, that place was the wildest of many wild SF places, and I got to know many of the women well. Nice gig – typically $300 – $600 a night, tax free. One of them invested her tips in real estate – she now owns 8 rental properties in the ‘burbs. When it was a slow night, she and I would hang out and debate Fed policy. Another one is now a successful SF real estate agent.
Both of them say that their days working at the joint were their happiest times.
SF needs less Puritans these days, and more Bacchanalians.

Agree with jeremy. The vitriol with which people like JWS rail against such things belies their own true agenda — to prevent anyone from doing anything they don’t approve of. The anti-prostitution forces have cloaked their puritanical agenda in the guise of “trafficking” which relies on misinformation and falsehoods that completely ignore the real issues and only misdirect critical resources. This City seems consumed by people and politicians far more concerned with what their neighbor is doing and the thought that someone, somewhere might be having fun and that just cannot be allowed. Yeah – I miss the City that used to be free and the Market Street Cinema is symbolic of that time.

No they are not the same thing but any time people talk about subsidized housing (you know hosing for poor people), the people here start complaining about building housing for drug users and criminals (ie the seedy people).

Building high concentrations of subsidized housing and not enforcing the law does breed crime. That point is not controversial, is it?
But the mid-Market slums are hardly the result of subsidized housing – or the lack of it. It’s just plain old neglect. And in this case I believe the seediness came before the poverty.
I’m no prude, in fact I wish that SF could have a relatively safe and orderly red-light district like e.g. Amsterdam or Hamburg. Maybe you “tolerant” types and your “progressive” politicians can noodle on that one a bit. But don’t try to pass off gangsters and crack whores as desirable diversity.

At one time, Mid-Market was the center of SF nightlife. Within a few blocks were thousands of theater seats, not even including the Paramount, the Orpheum the Golden Gate, or the Fox. I have seen lists of 20+ theaters, big and small.
A lot of things killed Mid-Market. The changing nature of film distribution changed the economics of the theater business. The destruction of the Fox and the Paramount. Suburbia, the multiplex, and television were the final blows. BART construction drove out most of the larger retail businesses, with Market Street a series of construction sites and open pits for years. And the cherry on top, a ban on signage that “beautified” the street but did nothing to help promote the remaining few stores.
Obviously the plan is for the money to move back in, now that the area is on the rise, build their new offices and condos, and pretend that none of that ever happened. It is important to remember though how we got to where we are, and what came before.